


Winter Should Have Meaning

by kirazi



Series: Fountainverse [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Idiots in Love, Post-Canon, Post-Disaster Reconstruction, but it will end happily, there may be some crying along the way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2020-11-28 21:33:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirazi/pseuds/kirazi
Summary: She almost kills a man the day she finds out Jaime is alive.(A companion story to A Great Fountain from Brienne's perspective.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we go again. A Great Fountain was Jaime's story, at heart, and so I stuck to his POV there—but I couldn't stop wondering about Brienne's perspective on the events therein, and eventually this happened. It was supposed to be a oneshot, but it decided to get more complicated, so chapters it is. Because I am extremely back on my bullshit, the title is from [yet another poem](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/20568/snowdrops/) in Louise Glück's _The Wild Iris_ (however, if you also wish to read it as a subtweet of the showrunners, by all means be my guest). Also, while this story can in theory be read independently, certain details probably won't make much sense if you haven't read A Great Fountain first.
> 
> Also, as usual: no gods no masters no betas, so apologies for the inevitable errors that I'll be coming back to fix before long.

She almost kills a man the day she finds out Jaime is alive.

Oh, it’s not _intentional_; she’s been sparring with one of Sansa’s men in the yard, and as she’s heading into the armory to rack her sword afterwards, another guard puts a hand on her shoulder to get her attention and some combination of pent-up feeling and muscle memory propel her until she has him pinned against the wall, the dulled blade at his quivering throat, her breath heaving—thank gods it’s a practice sword, or he might be dead already. The carelessness is inexcusable, and Brienne berates herself internally while apologizing to him, her face burning, and again as she apologizes to Garin Mormont, who commands the Queensguard in Winterfell. Later, she apologizes to Sansa, too, who gives her a level look, and says, “You might take a day to rest, tomorrow. You’ve scarcely rested since you arrived.”

Brienne knows her cheeks are reddening; hates them for giving her away. “I’m all right, your grace.”

Sansa raises an eyebrow. Her manner was queenly long before she wore a crown, but somehow it’s still more effective, now. “Yet again, _you_ don’t have to call me that. Are you sure? I know it’s been—a shock, this news.” The raven from Tyrion had arrived that morning; Sansa had called her in to share it immediately, and she’d felt her whole body flush with heat, all in an instant, and then go weak and trembling in its wake. Everyone else in the room had carefully avoided meeting her eyes.

It’s the kindness that undoes her; it would be easier to deal with disapproval, or scorn. But Sansa has been nothing but gentle with her about this, from that first morning over a year ago when she’d gone, pale and sick, to confess to her lady the fact of Jaime’s departure, his presumed betrayal.

“It has,” she says, after a pause. “A shock. That’s all. I’ll be fine, my lady. I’ll rest tonight, sleep early—there are drills planned in the morning; I would not have them delayed. May I have your leave to go?”

“Of course,” Sansa says, her eyes concerned and compassionate, and Brienne tries not to take it as pity, tries to let herself accept it gracefully, without shame. She leaves, then, goes to her rooms—not the ones she’d had before, thank gods, another gesture of kindness on Sansa’s part—and when the door is shut and locked behind her, she crumples onto the bed, puts her hands over her face, and breathes in deeply, feeling the slight tremor in her damp palms.

After the initial, staggering relief, there is bewilderment, and then a slow, kindling anger. Alive. _Alive,_ and in Essos for more than a year, this year that she’s spent mourning him, rebuilding. And now Arya has brought him back to King’s Landing, at Bran’s request, so Tyrion had written—she’s grateful, in a sudden painful rush, that she’s half a continent away from the King she’s sworn to guard with her life, right now.

She’s angry because she’s worked so hard, all these interminable months, to be—not happy, perhaps, but content, or something near enough. Stable. At peace with herself, and the life she’s made for herself. She’s gained so many of the things she’d struggled so long to achieve: respect, recognition, a role she can inhabit without constantly, exhaustingly, struggling to carve out room for it to exist. To wish for more—to want what she’d had, fleetingly, in that brief interlude with Jaime—seemed like folly. It was impossible to imagine having it again, in any case, with any man who wasn’t him. She’d grieved that loss, grieved it hard, grieved for him and the space of possibility he’d opened up in her life, the things he’d given her that she’d thought she’d never have at all, with anyone. But she’d made it though—past those first few weeks of gasping hurt, and the longer, slower, months of adjustment to this new life, the life they've all had to learn how to live in the aftermath. She’d found a way of moving forward, despite the lingering ache of his absence. Now it’s as if everything’s been thrown out of balance, and she’s reeling—shocked at how sharply she feels that hurt again. She resents being angry on her own behalf. It feels too much like an admission, of hopes she’d been foolish to hold. But she’s also angry for Tyrion’s sake, and for Jaime’s. It had been such an awful, stupid _waste_ of a life.

At that thought, there’s joy, too, seeping though the anger. He’s _alive_. Brienne beats down the treacherous tendrils of hope that want to rise up inside her, now—she knows she can’t allow herself to wander down that path again. But she can be glad of it, despite that—of the knowledge that he’s alive somewhere, that he hadn’t left this world, even if he’d left her. It feels less lonely, somehow, to know he’s still here. She holds onto that feeling, lets it carry her to sleep, emptying her mind of the rest.

She’s back in the yard early the next morning, before most of Winterfell has made it to breakfast, and she works hard all through the day, somehow managing to muster a shadow of the single-mindedness she’d always been able to summon on the battlefield. There are just a handful of days left before she departs for King’s Landing again, and there’s no time to waste. The King had sent her here to spend a month training with Sansa’s Queensguard, making sure they’re up to standard, and it’s a relief to witness their sturdy competence, even if it’s a little rough around the edges, like most things in the North. Like most things everywhere, these days. She’s also meant to see about recruiting a few suitable Northern youths to bring back as squires for her own men—that had been Tyrion and Sansa’s idea, fruit of the regular correspondence their ravens carry back and forth across the war-scarred land. They’ll send some boys back to Winterfell in return, once they have enough to spare. It’s a good idea, she thinks—a way of fostering connections between the courts that might last, tethering the North to the rest of the kingdoms and keeping the peace. Building a better future out of the ashes of the past. It’s disingenuous to pretend, as Tyrion does when he’s trying to sound statesmanlike, that that’s what so many had fought and died for—they’d been fighting just to have any future at all. But granted that victory, it seems wrong not to make the most of it, and Brienne means to do her part, do her duty. There are worse ways to give a life meaning than this.

“Have you made your choices, then?” Sansa asks her, the evening before she’s due to leave.

“Yes, your grace,” Brienne tells her, ignoring the eyeroll she gets in return for the title. “Alyn and Josip, for now. And Anders to come next year, if his family can spare him.” She pauses. “Also, I was thinking—you know Ynid, Halfar’s girl with the dark hair?”

Sansa’s brow furrows, for a moment, but then she nods. Halfar’s a wildling, one of the handful who’d stayed south of the wall after Tormund had led the rest of the survivors back beyond it. His wife had died in the retreat from Hardhome, and within a month of the Long Night’s end, he’d been handfast to a widow in Winterfell. Most of his offspring stayed, too—and Ynid, who’s fourteen and already taller than Brienne’s shoulder, is restless. She’s also excellent with a bow, and good with a knife, and there’s a fire in her Brienne recognizes.

“I’m not sure she’d be happy in King’s Landing,” Brienne says slowly. “And she’s not ready for it, not yet. But I’ve asked Garin to try training her at the sword. In a year, maybe, if she shows promise, you might send her to me. And then when I’m done with her, I’ll send her back to you.”

Sansa smiles. “It would be well to have a woman among my Queensguard,” she says. “Again. And Arya would be thrilled, once she hears of it. Besides, no one could say it’s without precedent, now—although I suppose that was the case even before you came.”

Brienne feels her mouth turn up, for what seems like the first time in days. “Your lady mother told me that, after we fled Bitterbridge,” she tells Sansa. “She hoped to persuade me to pledge myself to your brother’s claim. She pointed out that it was less unknown in the North, for a woman to bear a sword—she brought up Bear Island, and mentioned your aunt Lyanna had sparred with your father when they were young. And she said her youngest girl was very poor with a sewing-needle, but quite mad for a blade.”

Sansa laughs. “Is that what convinced you?”

“Not to swear to King Robb,” says Brienne. “But the next time she asked me, I swore to her instead.”

“And I thank the gods for that,” Sansa tells her, warm and strong, and in that moment she looks so much like Catelyn that Brienne feels her throat constrict at the sight.

“As do I, my lady,” she says, and then she’s taken by surprise when Sansa steps close and gives her a fierce, brief hug. Her eyes sting at the unaccustomed touch, although she keeps her head enough to notice, and be pleased, when she feels the telltale line of stiffness where a small dagger is sewn into the side of Sansa's bodice. She’d started teaching the girl how to wield it before they’d even left the Wall, and it’s reassuring to be reminded of its presence. There’s another, Brienne knows, hiding beneath her full skirts, strapped into the top of her right boot. It’s easier to leave Sansa, well guarded though she is now, knowing she can also guard herself if there’s need of it. Brienne’s made sure of that.

Sansa steps back, then, and nods firmly, although her eyes are still warm. “Very well. Josip and Alyn now; Anders to follow, and Ynid when she’s ready, if we think she’ll be happy in King’s Landing. And one last thing, Ser Brienne?”

“Yes, your grace?”

“If _you’re_ not happy in King’s Landing, come with her when you send her back to me. Bran will let you go—to Tarth, if you want it, but if not, there will always be a place for you here.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Brienne says, and holds still to watch her for just a moment longer, before she bows and leaves the room.

She takes one last look back at Winterfell, at the walls rising strong and tall once more, even if they’re pockmarked here and there with gaps and scaffolding, before their small party rides away the next morning. It’s not easy to go—it’s been good, being there, a relief to escape the exhausting, ever-present sight of the still-ruined capital, to see how far the rebuilding here has come. It’s been wonderful to be at Sansa’s side again, to watch with pride and relief as she inhabits the throne she’d claimed, leading her people fiercely and well. But the North is crowded with memories, and while some are happy—this was the place she first felt truly secure, respected in her own right—others remain treacherous. All the more so when they’re memories of happiness that have grown sharp edges, carved by grief and the anger she’s managed to keep from turning into bitterness. Setting out on the road south, she feels them stinging anew, awakened by the prospect of what she might find awaiting her at the other end of the Kingsroad. And yet a whining, wounded-dog part of her is eager, too, almost as desperate to reach that moment as she is to postpone it.

She has time, on the long journey back to King’s Landing, to prepare herself. It should be enough, but it isn’t. It doesn’t help that there’s very little to distract her on the way. Alyn and Josip aren’t much for talking—boys of just sixteen and seventeen, for all that they’d fought bravely and well in Winterfell’s defense while younger still. And they seem to be somewhat in awe of her, which is strange and a little bit embarrassing, and makes conversation awkward. She rides a length or two behind them most of the way, just out of earshot, so they can keep one another company and leave her alone with her thoughts—with her memories.

She can’t help hearing it again, the echo of his voice harsh in her ears: _you think I’m a good man?_ But he’d been so gentle, even then, his thumb moving over her wrist, that heartrending grief on his face. _You were good to me_, she tells him back, in the privacy of her mind, as she has time and again since that night. _Except for a little while, at the beginning, and at the very end. You were good to me._

She remembers all the ways he’d been good to her—the voice shouting _sapphires!_ in the night, a shining sword set in her hands, the flat blade of another falling to her shoulders, each in turn. That’s what she’d reminded herself of, when she’d finally steeled her nerve to open the White Book and complete his page. She’s tried not to think about the other ways he was good to her, but she remembers. Oh, she remembers: the warmth of his touch; the welcome scratch of his beard; his infuriating teasing, which somehow always inflamed her despite herself; that sudden, piercing look of longing on his face, which would come and go so quickly she never quite felt sure of what she was seeing when she saw it. The weight of his body in her bed, reshaping the terrain of the little world they made under the furs and wool. The weight of his body, on hers. She remembers it all. Her body will not permit her to forget. 

Now, with every hoofbeat drawing her nearer, Brienne tries to rebuild the shields around her heart, to be ready for the moment she’ll have to see him again.


	2. Chapter 2

King’s Landing looks the same, save for a few new shoots of green sprouting up here and there, in the gradually warming weather that no one is quite ready to call spring yet. Josip and Alyn go quiet as they enter the capital, seeing the extent of the destruction for the first time. No amount of energetic repairs can yet conceal the evidence all around that testifies, wordlessly, to the terrifying forces that had been unleashed here. Brienne hates the sight of the melted stone; it reminds her of Harrenhal. It seems wrong to her that she should find the city so unchanged, when the fact of one small change—one person’s presence inside these ruined walls—has altered its aura so utterly in her mind.

The quartermaster is waiting for them at the stables. Brienne turns her charges over to his keeping—that’s a relief—and gives him instructions to see to their care and feeding, and send them to join the mustering of the guard in the morning. She pauses at the water-trough to rinse her dusty hands and face, and continues into the Red Keep, keeping her stride sure and steady, her expression carefully fixed.

Tyrion is waiting for her in the offices of the Hand. “Ser Brienne,” he greets her, offering up a crooked smile. “Welcome back.”

“My Lord Hand,” she replies, nodding briskly in return, trying not to react to the change that is as evident on his face as it was absent from the city’s. He looks—oh, he looks like he’s had half the weight lifted from his shoulders; there’s a lightness in him that hadn’t been there in the whole year she’s come to know him. She’s still not sure she likes Tyrion—he’s complicated, and sharp-tongued, and he’d been unkind to her in the past, although he’s never unkind to her now. If anything, it’s the opposite: he treats her with careful respect, and a slightly apologetic air that itself stings, sometimes, because of what it implies. Being in his presence is occasionally difficult—despite the obvious physical differences, she can’t help but notice all the little things that remind her: flashes of a familiar, biting humor, or a particular turn of phrase that she recognizes, the remaining traces of a private, family language. But still—she knows how he’s grieved, this past year. She’d rebuffed his attempts to commiserate with her, to offer her the companionship of shared mourning, but they had altered her sense of the man all the same. It softens something inside her, witnessing what it’s done for him, this unexpected reprieve. He’s not alone anymore, she thinks. He has—family, now. Again. It must be an astonishing feeling.

Tyrion looks up at her, searching her face for something—an echo of the transformation she sees on his own?—but he doesn’t comment on what he observes there. Instead, he asks her about Sansa, about the reconstruction of Winterfell, about the squires she’s recruited. She answers calmly, a little unsettled, but glad to retreat into the familiar pattern of interaction, the performance of their accustomed roles—that’s what they are to one another, the Lord Hand and the Lord Commander. That’s all she knows how to be to him.

“Ah, and another thing,” he says, when she’s finished. “We’ve lost Whent, I’m afraid. He caught a sudden fever and died of it, a fortnight ago. Took a few other Gold Cloaks with him.”

“You’re sure it was a fever?” Brienne asks, suspicious. Borys Whent was a holdover, as well as a thorn in her side; he’d succeeded Janos Slynt as commander of the city watch, and Tyrion had chosen to keep him in that position, in the meantime, for continuity’s sake—better to stabilize the remnants of the force under his command, less than half the number they’d been before the dragon. The decision hadn’t sat easy with either of them; Whent had had little to recommend him besides his tenure.

“I asked the King,” says Tyrion, “and if he’s aware of any unnatural cause, he didn’t see fit to inform me of it. Whent’s no a great loss, to be sure, but it puts the problem of the Gold Cloaks back on the table.”

Brienne nods, feeling weary. They’ve talked about this before. She’s had her hands full with her own responsibilities, and since the Gold Cloaks technically report to Tyrion, she’d left the matter to him—Whent hadn’t been the sort to take kindly a woman’s command.

“I don’t mean to overburden you right away,” Tyrion continues, “but it occurred to me that this might provide an opportunity for some, er—”

“Housecleaning?” she supplies, and Tyrion grins.

“Just so. You’re aware of the complaints we’ve heard, not to mention the general miasma of incompetence and greed. Now that Whent himself is out of the way, and things are more stable, you and your men could look into the matter. Figure out who ought to be drummed out of the force altogether, at least, and whom among the remnants might actually make a decent commander of it. I’ve left things in the hands of his deputies, for now, but I’d prefer not to leave them very long.”

“Of course, my Lord,” Brienne says. “I’ll speak to Ser Podrick, and we’ll see to it right away.”

Tyrion's eyebrows go up. “Clean the dust off your boots and get a decent night’s rest and settle your Northern ducklings in, first. There’s no hurry.” Brienne concedes with a nod, and rises to leave.

Tyrion glances away, for a moment, and looks at her again. He clears his throat, and speaks again, a different note creeping in his voice: “You’ll have heard, of course, the news of my brother’s survival. And return.”

Brienne halts, fixed in place. “Yes,” she says, eventually.

“Rescued by pirates, apparently,” he informs her. “The ship carried him to Essos; they didn’t know who he was.”

“Oh,” she says. That detail hadn’t been in the letter; she’d wondered.

“He was a slave there,” Tyrion says. “Though it doesn’t seem to have done him much harm—certainly not so much as his previous position did.” He looks oddly bemused, for a moment, and keeps going: “In fact, he picked up a new trade, of sorts. He was working for the head aquificer of Lys, when Lady Arya found him. Our king, in his unusual wisdom, has brought him back to put what he learned to use.”

“Oh,” she says. “I see.” Tyrion’s complaints about the state of the sewers have been a regular feature of the small council meetings she’s obligated to attend, nowadays.

“That—that’s good, then,” she manages. “A good purpose.”

Tyrion’s silent for a moment, and then he gives her something akin to a smile. “He asked after you, the day he came back,” he tells her, as if she’s supposed to be able to perceive the meaning of that information. Brienne doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing.

“I told him you were in Winterfell,” Tyrion continues, “and beyond that, he’d have to ask directly.”

“Oh,” Brienne says, dumbly. Again. “I’m not sure there’s anything to ask about,” she tells him, and Tyrion nods, subdued.

“Very well. I’m sure you wish to rest, Ser Brienne, I won’t detain you any longer.”

She nods again, automatically, and goes, feeling unmoored and a little winded as she makes her way through the keep to the White Sword Tower. She’s grateful not to encounter anyone she knows by name on the way.

With a sigh of relief, she enters her quarters at last; finds her saddlebags already resting inside the door. She unpacks methodically, trying not to remember the first time she’d come to this tower, the man who’d greeted her here. He’d slept in this room for years—not this bed, though, she reminds herself, shamefully glad that the furnishings had been damaged by the fires that burned though the Red Keep, justifying the acquisition of new ones on entirely practical terms. Most of Jaime’s things had apparently been packed or thrown away after his departure, in any case—at the order of his queen or his successor; she’s not sure. She knows that Gregor Clegane had not taken over these quarters—another ghost she’s glad she doesn’t have to reckon with. So it must have been another of the old kingsguard, all of whom are dead. She’d had the likely remnants boxed up and sent to Tyrion, who’d made no mention of the matter in her hearing since.

It’s another relief to find Podrick awaiting her in the common room, with tankards of ale and fresh bread ready, and a roast chicken steaming on the table. He’s as steady and bright-eyed as ever, and has he somehow gained an inch of height while she was gone? It’s still strange, sometimes, to turn her head and take note of the fact that the boy in her mind’s eye has been replaced by a grown man: unreasonably proud of his beard, justifiably proud of the Ser in front of his name. She’s done well, with him, despite a poor showing at the start. She can be proud of that.

She tells him about Winterfell, catches him up on the news of the comrades he’d come to know there—the ones still living—and explains the arrangements she’d like him to make for Josip and Alyn’s training. He grins. “We’ll set them to rights,” he tells her, with a gleam in his eye, and she can’t help but smile a little at it—all grown up, her squire, and getting ready to put some squires of his own through their paces. She hopes for their sake he goes about it a little less harshly than she had.

Pod drains his ale and rises to leave, but he pauses at the door, and then speaks up, a little hesitant. “Ser, I don’t know if Lord Tyrion has told you—”

“Yes,” Brienne says, before he can start to explain, because she knows him well enough to read his features, although if she’s honest it doesn’t take a lot of knowing, not with Pod. He conceals less of himself than almost anyone else she’s ever met. Tyrion may have taught him about wine—and dubiously, about women—but he’d forgotten to teach him the art of guarding his face. And then, of course, she can’t help but think of how he’d happened to leave Tyrion’s side and come to her own. She remembers the easy camaraderie he’d come to share with Jaime in Winterfell—he must be glad, of course, to have that friendship back, and she feels, vaguely, that she ought to make it clear she won’t begrudge him that.

“I’m sure Ser Jaime was pleased to see you again,” she says.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him,” Pod says, darkly, and Brienne almost has to swallow a yelp of surprised laughter at the foreboding scowl on his face. It’s like watching a storm roll in over Shipbreaker Bay, sudden and roiling. She blinks at him, a little confused, and he offers her a stalwart nod.

“If he troubles you, my lady—Ser—just say the word,” he assures her. “I’ll put an end to it. Any of us will.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” she says faintly, astonished, and Pod nods again, looking both relieved and bit deflated, and goes. Brienne claps her hand over her mouth, but she can’t stop a slightly unhinged giggle from escaping. It’s _absurd_. To think of her squire—her former squire—her friend, threatening to—what, beat Jaime? For what, insulting her honor? Making her weep? It’s completely and utterly ridiculous, and it should make her feel even more of a fool—and yet it warms her a little, this defensiveness on her behalf, as if she were some delicate young lady, thrown over by a boorish suitor and waiting for someone to avenge her. The sheer folly of it trails her all the way to bed, and she falls asleep with the ghost of a smile on her bitten lip.

She gets right back to work in the morning, and the day is long and busy, but she’s divided all the while, can’t help keeping watch on the corners of her vision, dreading and hoping she’ll catch sight of him in the distance. But she doesn’t. She feels restless all over, like her skin doesn’t quite fit over her bones anymore. It’s maddening. She manages to pull herself together enough to spend the afternoon cloistered away with Pod and Ser Rhodri, developing a plan of attack for the problem of the Gold Cloaks, but once that’s done, she can’t quite bear the prospect of joining the men for supper, so she sends them away and goes to the smaller yard next to the armory and drills until she’s about to fall over.

She doesn’t want to lose the edge she gained in all the long years of war, and tonight, moreover, she wants to keep her mind busy with the movements of her body until both are too exhausted to hold a memory. As she works through the steps and swings, starting with the most elementary positions, her thoughts are drawn back to her youth, instead, skipping over the more recent past. She remembers the first time she gripped the hilt of a practice sword and sliced an exploratory arc through the air, remembers how good it felt: the ringing certainty that this was what she was made for; the exultation of her awkward, gangly form suddenly being right for something. It had transformed her, that discovery—the realization that she might evaluate her body for what it could do, instead of how it looked, or failed to look. Sparring is more useful than drilling alone, but this quiet, solo act always feels like coming home. She doesn’t stop until the moon is rising in the twilit sky, and her right arm is so heavy she can scarcely lift the wooden sword. It works, after a fashion: she bolts down a late supper, exhausted and ravenous, and sleeps like the dead. So she does it again the next day, and the next.

She resolutely refuses to ask questions, but knowledge accumulates around her like drifted snow: he lives in the Tower of the Hand with his brother. He has an office in the hold—in a wing she has no cause to pass through—and an assistant, who is a young woman, and the subject of some gossip for no reason other than that one. He is apparently taking up his work with quite a furious energy, judging from the effect on the Master of Coin’s subordinates, who are anxiously scattering in all directions, like a coop of chickens with a fox come among them. She’ll see him, sooner or later, at a council meeting; there’s nothing to do but wait for the inevitable, and gird herself for it, as she has for any other battle.

And then she’s in the courtyard, one day not long after, waiting for the morning muster, and Jaime walks out of the Tower of the Hand. When his unmistakable profile comes into view, she's suddenly glad of her armor and white cloak, and then uncomfortably conscious of them—of all the marks of the office he’d once held. He wears the comparatively humble clothing of a mid-ranking official, burnished leather and brown wool, a shirt of undyed linen peeking out at the collar—garments of sober high quality, but with none of the fine glitter of a lord. She sees him first, a moment of held breath, and then he looks up and his eyes catch on hers, and it takes everything she has to hold steady as he approaches, slow and hesitant.

The worst, the most mortifying thing, is that she can’t pretend—she’d learned, long ago, to be good at pretending—that he hadn’t hurt her. Because for once, she’d let the hurt show: she’d poured out her heart in the freezing air; she’d wept, and begged him to stay. And he’d seen. He remembers. She can tell from the way he looks at her now, quietly anguished. That makes it worse, somehow, uncovers the skin-crawling sense of exposure.

“Ser Jaime,” she says, at last, breaking the silence, and he calls her _Ser_ in return, and then _Lord Commander_. It’s an awkward conversation, but she doesn’t run from it. She manages to accept his compliments on her position, which he seems to mean sincerely, with a modicum of grace, and listens to him explain, a little haltingly, what the king has fetched him back to do. She can’t help studying him, furtively—there’s more gray in his beard, and his hair is trimmed shorter than it had been in Winterfell, no longer long enough to brush out of his eyes. He seems bereft and a little bewildered, like a dog that’s escaped its lead and later repented of the fact. She knows he regrets the hurt he caused her. It must pale, next to his grief for Cersei and the child, but it’s there. And it’s that, more than anything, that prompts her to say it, as she finally makes her escape: “I’m sorry for your losses,” she tells him, and only stumbles a little over the words.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After an unexpectedly long delay (sorry about that!) we're finally back: happy belated new year! Please note that the rating has changed, although not (yet) for the reason you were probably hoping. The remaining chapters should be posted more regularly, since the professional and personal obligations that got in the way of this one have quieted down to a simmer. But this story has been a troublesome beast, so I am not committing myself to any particular posting schedule. I can promise you that it will get done, though, unless I get hit by a bus or something.
> 
> also, many thanks to Roccolinde and sameboots for listening to me yell about my frustration with this chapter and providing sensible advice and reassurance!

It gets easier.

As she walks away from him, her chest tight in the chill morning air, she thinks to herself: _that wasn’t so bad_. She’d kept her feet, her voice hadn’t trembled; none of the humiliating scenarios she’d imagined, these past few weeks, had come to pass. She can bear it. He’s here, and he’s living, and that’s a gift from the gods. It’s enough.

Several days pass before Brienne sees him again. He’s busy with his work, and so is she. She’s grateful that their paths don’t cross often, although the awareness of his presence nearby, within these same walls, nags at her. There is also the horrifying conviction that everyone around her knows; that they must be talking, behind her back—must be waiting for her, or Jaime, to say or do...something. Surely the gossip about what had transpired between them hasn’t stayed put in the North. But aside from those brief exchanges with Tyrion and Pod, no one says anything to her face, not even Bronn, and she tries not to let that make her wonder even more keenly what they might be saying out of earshot. The hardest part, aside from the constant knowledge that he might appear around a corner at any moment, is getting through the council meetings, on those intermittent occasions when he’s summoned to report on the state of the waterworks. That’s when she has the opportunity to study him at length.

He looks older, greyer, a little more weathered around the edges. It’s hard to imagine Jaime—proud, stubborn Jaime, always sharp-tongued and defiant, even in chains—as a slave. She strives, furiously, to stifle her curiosity, but she can’t help wonder what it’s been like for him, this year and more in a foreign land, how it’s changed him—because he does seem changed. Solemn, almost subdued; that bitter, edged humor mostly drained away, replaced by an odd equanimity, and a quiet determination to do the work before him. But if his soul has been tempered by what he’s been through since, his face is still that of the man she knew in Winterfell, and it takes all of Brienne’s strength to suppress her reaction to the sight of him across the council table. It would be easier if she didn’t keep catching him watching her, when he thinks she’s not looking.

“Shall we proceed to the matter of the city watch?” Tyrion suggests, turning to her, forcing her attention back to business.

“Well, we’ve made progress,” Brienne says grimly. “But I’m afraid the obvious solution will just produce more problems. We ought to expel more than a third of them, given what we’ve discovered—and I don’t know what to do with a group of men who are unfit for service, but accustomed to bearing arms and suddenly deprived of their livelihood. It’s a recipe for making more brigands. But it’s not as if we can send them all to the Wall—most of them haven’t broken the law, not provably. And the ones who have won’t go quietly.”

“Send them to me,” Jaime speaks up, and when she forces herself to look at him, there’s an anticipatory, almost sinister gleam in his eyes. “I need more men to dig ditches and build tunnels. We’ll put them to use. It’s hard work, but we’ll pay them well enough to make brigandage somewhat less appealing.”

Bronn starts grousing at that, so Brienne simply acquiesces to the proposal, and leaves the two of them to fight it out over how best to come up with the budget for the wages. If they can make it work, it’s one less thing for her to worry about.

The next morning, there’s a raven from Winterfell, bearing a pointed inquiry from Sansa about her well-being, which she ignores, at least for the moment, and a note from Gavin Mormont about the progress of his trainees, which she doesn’t. After breakfast and the morning drills, she walks over towards the Grand Maester’s quarters in search of Gilly, to solicit her opinion on how well a wildling girl might fare in King’s Landing, and what the two of them might do to make the prospect a little less forbidding for Ynid. An hour later, as she’s about to take her leave, Sam appears, beaming at the sight of his wife and offspring, the youngest of whom is careening around the room with all the enthusiasm and coordination of a drunken recruit. Brienne can’t help but smile, seeing the way he dotes on them. It’s a reminder that not every light kindled in those dark days in the North was extinguished, that some of it has survived to burn strong and lively here in the present.

“Oh, Ser Brienne!” he cries, suddenly taking note of her. “I meant to return this to you yesterday, but it slipped my mind”—he disappears into his adjacent study, followed by the sound of rustling papers on his eternally disarrayed desk, before returning with the White Book in his plump hands.

“Thank you,” she tells him. “I hope you found what you needed.”

“Oh yes,” he says, nodding benevolently, “the record was very helpful.” But he shoots a quick, furtive look at her as she departs, leaving her momentarily puzzled—until later that day, back in the common room, when she opens the book and sees the amendment to Jaime’s page. It could only be his hand: the cramped, awkward lettering of a man who’d never taken easily to writing, even before he’d had to relearn it in middle age. The words waver, suddenly, and she blinks her smarting eyes until the letters regain their form. She takes a deep breath, and closes the book. There’s no point in dwelling on it. She has work to do. And if she trains even longer than usual that evening, before staggering sore and winded to her supper and her bed, no one comments.

Brienne wakes in the dark of the night, feeling the sweat cooling on her skin, the tangled covers, the throb between her legs, and flushes to recall what she’d been dreaming about, her mind still full of flashes: his thigh sliding against hers, the taste of his skin in her mouth, the motion, their rasping breaths, that heated fullness. She tries to banish the feeling, but it’s too late; it’s coursing through her, needy and demanding, and so she slides a hand down to where she’s wet—fingers moving almost furiously, because this makes her angry, too; it’s yet another thing he’d tarnished, that he’d unthinkingly taken from her: the easy enjoyment of her body’s responses. When she’d done this, before, it had all been so naively abstract: speculative and nebulous, even when she’d been picturing someone specific in her mind. But after, now, she knows. She knows exactly how it feels, how _he_ feels, and this act can’t be simple anymore, uncontaminated by that knowledge. She clears her mind as best she can, focuses only on sensation, and it’s enough: she comes, gasping, and if it’s more release than pleasure, it’s still sufficient to lull her back to sleep, the tension drained from her body.

But in the morning, she can’t help remembering the dream, and her response. She hadn’t quite realized, back when it had started with Jaime, how long it had been since anyone had touched her with more than the briefest, barest sort of affection. There was Pod, of course, smiling at her shoulder as he helped take off her armor; or the occasional backslap of camaraderie from one or another of the less-disciplined wildlings under her command, and Sansa’s rare, cautious embraces. They’d warmed her, these little moments of contact, through the long Northern winter; those sparks were all she’d had for years, ever since she’d left her father and her home. And they’d paled in contrast to the inferno that had been Jaime, in her arms, in her bed, for a whole month. The sudden absence of it, when he’d left, had been agony, leaving her skin feeling as raw as her heart. It’s taken a year to stop feeling the ache, the slow withdrawal; it’s been hard work, like building up the calluses on her sword hand all over again, training with blistered fingers until the sheer repetition of injury built a barrier over her flesh. It’s as if his return has stripped the better part of that protection away, making her aware all over again of what she’s missing. There’s nothing to be done for it, but the feeling creeps up on her: most often at nights, alone in her bed, but increasingly intruding, in momentary pulses, on her days.

The ongoing reform of the Gold Cloaks soon spools, tiresomely and predictably, into a broader series of investigations into all manner of bribery and malfeasance that had been ongoing under Whent and his subordinates’ command, and Tyrion—tiresomely, and predictably—dumps _that_ into Brienne’s lap as well, pointing out that the city watch can hardly be trusted to police themselves given the evidence of their recent misconduct. So that’s how she ends up facing Ser Rhodri across her desk as he haltingly explains that her presence is required in “a certain establishment in the city,” while Brienne tries not to look exasperated at this unnecessary delicacy. Rhodri is a good man, honest and reliable and strong in the arm—she wouldn’t have named him to the Kingsguard otherwise—but he’s just this side of being pious enough that she’d otherwise suspect him of having been a candidate for the Faith Militant. He respects her authority as his commander unquestioningly, but there are still moments when it’s obvious that he can’t help but be conscious that she’s a woman as well as a soldier—and that it’s hard for him to treat the two as the same.

“An establishment?” she asks him, dryly.

Rhodri looks sheepish. “Er,” he says. “It’s, well, a pleasure house, Ser."

Of course it bloody well is. Brienne sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, to forestall the headache she feels coming on.

“_Please_ tell me no member of the small council is a customer of this establishment,” she says. If Bronn is mixed up in this she’s tempted to make him go deal with it himself, except then she won’t be able to rest assured that it will be dealt with properly, at least not by her standards.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Rhodri assures her, and she vents a sigh of relief. One less complication.

“The, um, lady in charge—not a_ lady_, I mean, but that’s what they call her, Lady Helaena—she insisted on speaking with you directly, Ser,” he says, and she sighs again.

“Fine,” she tells him. “I’ll go.”

She makes her way to the Hill of Rhaenys—not to the Street of Silk, but to one close by, to a house that had been grand, before the dragonfire, and still carries the echo of that grandeur, even in the shabbier present. It had belonged to a lord, once. He’d died in the fire, according to Rhodri’s report, and the woman who had been his preferred—courtesan, she supposes, is the best word for it—had claimed it in the aftermath, arriving with a handful of rough men who answered to her, and a greater number of women following, and made it her own before anyone had taken sufficient note of the fact to object to it.

A servant escorts her to a windowed chamber on an upper floor, and offers wine, which Brienne demurs. She has a moment to survey the space—a patchwork of fine things salvaged from other once-fine houses—before she hears a door open behind her, and the sound of graceful footsteps. Brienne turns, and stills at the sight of their owner.

The woman is at least her age, maybe older, and beautiful, in every way Brienne is not: lush curves, showcased by a low-cut yellow gown, a cascade of dark curls loosed to her shoulders, full red lips, skin like dark honey, unmarred by scarring and only a little softened with age, the hint of crows-feet at the corners only making her deep-set eyes more captivating. Something about her makes Brienne think of Cersei: not Cersei as she’d been in the Dragonpit, armored and imperious, with Jaime grim at her side—no, this woman is uncomfortably reminiscent of the golden queen, wrapped in bright silks and crowned with long, shining hair, the one who’d confronted Brienne at a long-ago wedding with a knowing smile. A woman capable of wielding her femininity like a weapon.

“Lord Commander,” she says, in a voice that’s unexpectedly deep and dry; Brienne can see why men might find it alluring.

“My lady,” she replies, dipping her head in a polite nod, and Helaena smiles, amused, seating herself on a silk-covered chair by the table. She gestures to the other, and Brienne moves to accept the offer.

“You have better claim to that title than I,” she says, as Brienne sits. “But you are called Ser now, are you not?”

“I am,” Brienne tells her, firmly, vaguely uncomfortable at the terrain on which this conversation is beginning. Still, that’s something she’ll always be grateful to Jaime for: the right to finally be addressed in a way that feels correct, that settles on her shoulders as comfortably as a fur-capped Northern cloak, with no discomfiting rasp of lace about it.

“I was told you wished to speak with me,” she says, reclaiming her ground.

“Indeed, Ser,” Helaena says, pouring herself a glass of the wine Brienne had rejected. “Some men of the Kingsguard came calling here recently, and not for the usual purpose. They were asking questions about Borys Whent.”

“They did so at my request,” Brienne tells her.

“You are sworn to protect the king,” says Helaena. “Why, then, are you concerned with a matter such as this?”

“I am sworn to protect the realm,” Brienne tells her. “To defend the innocent, and ensure that justice is done.” Bran had made changes to the vows sworn by the Kingsguard; their duties to the monarch do not supersede the other obligations of a knight. She wonders if anyone’s told Jaime about that—wonders what it might mean to him, to know that she won’t ever face the dilemma he had, as a boy standing horrified at Aerys’s side. It’s not the only change Bran has made, but it’s the one she thinks would matter most to him. She puts Jaime out if her mind, so as to focus on the matter at hand. “I do not command the city watch, my lady, not directly,” she continues. “But it is my concern if they jeopardize the King’s peace, or his justice, all the same.”

Helaena’s dark eyes hold her own for a beat, steady and evaluative, and then she nods, decisively. “He made a habit of paying visits here, when he still lived,” she says. “He expected the house to be at his service.”

“Expected, or demanded?” Brienne asks, because she’s heard enough from the reports to guess the answer.

“Is there a difference, when a powerful man, with armed men at his back, states his wishes?” Helaena asks, and doesn't wait for a reply. “I paid those he expected to entertain him out of my own purse. I would do so again, if necessary, to keep us safe. But I hope it might no longer be necessary.”

“Certainly not,” Brienne tells her, gritting her teeth. She’s going to have Rhodri interrogate the rest of the watch to make sure they understand that extortion will not be tolerated, no matter what coin it’s paid in.

Helaena smiles. “I’m pleased to hear it, Lord Commander. If you can ensure that, I can be of assistance to you.”

Brienne looks up, and her confusion must be evident on her face, because Heleana smiles again, and this time it looks like a genuine response, rather than a calculated gesture.

“Entertainment wasn’t the only thing Whent came for,” Helaena tells her. “There are other ways we might be of use, should you be willing to look past your distaste for our profession.”

Brienne doesn’t want to give offense. “It’s not my place to judge how others survive,” she says, carefully. She’s ill at ease in this place, in this company, but it’s not disgust that makes her so. It’s just a stark reminder of how things often are, between men and women, even when it's sanctified by tradition and dressed up with prettier words: how they might have been for her, had she been forced to marry. At least it hadn’t been like that with Jaime, and that's another gift that she’s grateful for, despite everything that followed.

“Things were hard for many after the dragon came,” says Helaena. She shrugs an elegant shoulder. “They were hard before, too. There were those who saw a chance to change their lives. And those who had no livelihoods left and no better choice. I’m fair; I don’t ask the girls to go with anyone they don’t want to, or work sick, or rid themselves of a babe if they don’t wish to be rid of it. They can leave anytime they choose, with a purse to see them into the future. They stay, mostly, because it’s better here. There’s safety, such as it is, and a little comfort, and a chance to save for their old age. Much better than the bargain Lord Baelish offered. Were you there when they slit his throat, in Winterfell?”

“No,” Brienne tells her. “I was representing Lady Sansa’s interests elsewhere.” She’d been on her way here, in fact, bound for that dreadful encounter at the Dragonpit.

“A pity,” Helaena says, her smile edged with something darker now. “I would have liked to hear of it from a witness.”

She sets down her glass. “I am no Littlefinger,” she continues. “But like him, I have access to information; like him, I am interested in putting it to use. Not for ill purpose, or to gain advantage against the Crown. I can assure you of that. But I would trade it, freely. In the interest of the city, and those who are under my protection.”

This woman is a resource, Brienne realizes, and one she ought not be hasty to discard. There’s no Master of Whispers in the new court, and little need for one, given the King’s greensight. But the King doesn’t see everything, or if he does, he certainly doesn’t always take note of it—his sight often seems to be fixed on broader horizons, and the small gossip of the city might not strike him as a matter of interest, even if it’s relevant to the matters that are _her_ concern.

“And what would you expect in return?” Brienne asks, slowly.

“Security,” Helaena responds, her words coming fast and sure. “I want the Gold Cloaks to do their job. Without leeway to bully us, or expectation of unpaid favors.”

“You may expect that without payment of any kind,” Brienne tells her, firmly, and is met with an answering nod.

“Then we are agreed,” says Helaena. “Whent came here frequently enough that I could pass along information as it arose, but I imagine we would need to find some other way of meeting. I would prefer to discuss such matters directly. Messages go too easily astray, and messengers too.”

Brienne thinks for a moment. “I'll ask Ser Podrick to make himself known to you,” she says. “He can come and go here without attracting undue attention,” or anything else, given the way he’s apparently hanging on Jaime’s assistant’s every word, or so the talk in the common room goes, “and you can contact him whenever you need to speak with me. He has my ear, and my trust.”

“Very well,” says Helaena, standing. “Will you take a glass of wine, Ser, to toast our accord?”

“Thank you, my lady,” Brienne tells her, “but I cannot, this time.” She rises to go, and then stops, as Helaena steps closer.

“If wine does not suit,” Helaena says, still smiling, “you might stay anyway, and enjoy my company.”

It takes a moment for her meaning to become clear, and when it does, Brienne feels herself go red, suddenly and terribly. She’s grateful that her armor and cloak confine the flush spreading down her chest, although there’s nothing she can do about her face—she must be gawping. For a moment she thinks the woman is likely mocking her. But Helaena’s expression is frank and amused, a little rueful as she takes in Brienne’s astonishment, and Brienne realizes she's sincere. It’s not the first time a woman has shown interest in her, although usually it’s only after the fact that she’s understood what those confusing, coded overtures had meant. None of them have been this direct.

“That would make me no better than Whent,” Brienne says, still blushing.

Helaena quirks an eyebrow. “Borys Whent took what he felt was owed him,” she says, and there’s laughter on the edge of her words. “This is an offer, Ser, freely made.”

“I—I’m flattered, my lady,” Brienne stammers, “but I cannot.”

“Forgive me, then, if I made an undue assumption,” Helaena says, but her voice is warm, and she doesn’t seem offended. Brienne stumbles through a polite farewell, still painfully aware of her heated cheeks, and she sighs with something like relief when she finally steps out into the cool night air, the friendly cloak of the darkness falling over her dazed head.

She makes her way back to the Red Keep, feeling alternately bewildered, embarrassed, and strangely, shyly, flattered. For a moment, she lets herself wonder what it would be like: how those small, beringed hands might feel on her skin, how those soft curves would compare to her muscled hardness. How different it would be from what she remembers. It’s almost—intriguing, even if it doesn’t quite appeal; maybe it’s just because the longing to be touched is so strong. But she also can’t help but think of how freakish she would appear by contrast, set bare beside a beautiful woman—even one who wants her. It would be hard to forget herself, confronted with the evidence.

This whirl of thoughts still vivid in her mind, she climbs the stairs of the White Sword Tower, bypassing the common room—better to update Pod and Rhodri in the morning, she tells herself, when she can recount the relevant parts of the conversation without blushing. She feels herself relax once she’s finally back behind the solid door of her chamber, alone, and starts removing her armor, piece by piece, pausing to pour a cup of water and gulp it down. She’s just sat down to take her boots off when a knock sounds on the door, and she rises again, wearily, preparing herself to meet Pod’s eager questioning. But before she can reach for the latch, the door opens, and Jaime tumbles over the threshold.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, finally: we're back! I'm sorry this one took so long, and I am not going to make any promises about when the next chapter is expected, since I clearly jinxed myself by saying the this one would be quick—and then taking SIX MONTHS to write approximately three thousand words. But I haven't given up on the story, and if you're still reading, I'm glad you haven't either.
> 
> Many thanks to Roccolinde for endless cheerleading over the intervening months, and for looking at a draft of this chapter.

She can smell the wine on his breath.

For a long, awful moment, the only thing she can think of is the way his mouth had tasted, when he’d finally lunged up and seized her lips with his, the first time. He’s so close she can smell him, too, catch the warm scent of his skin under his rumpled shirt, and it’s unbearable. She closes her eyes for a moment; shoves the memory of his beard’s texture out of her mind. Jaime’s babbling, saying something about the White Book, saying he’s sorry, saying that he’s fixed it, he’s changed the ending. When he pauses for breath, she says, “Ser Jaime,” forcing the words through dry lips, but before she can come up with the rest of a sentence, any sentence, any sober words to keep him at arm’s length, he starts to speak again. He comes barreling past her defenses, calls her by her name—not Ser, not Lord Commander, just _Brienne_, her name like it had sounded in his mouth before, and it’s too much, but he doesn’t stop, he’s still apologizing, he says he’s sorry he’d let her think him dead, and it’s all too much.

She feels herself starting to unravel, and—even worse—sees the moment he realizes it, the dismay that crosses his blurring features. “I’m so sorry,” he says, his voice cracking, and she flinches back, all of her body withdrawing from this dreadful, naked proximity. How dare he look anguished—when this is his doing, when he’s the one who’s come to her door and reminded her of everything they’d been to one another, everything she’s lost? She wants to say so, but she can’t speak—something is choking her throat and the words can’t get past it and she’s afraid of the sounds that will come out if she opens her mouth. The despair on his face is terrible, and when he raises his hand, as if to touch her, she jerks away, shielding herself with her arms, turning her face to the wall because she can’t keep looking at him and she doesn’t want him to look at her, not now. Her shoulders are shaking with the effort of holding herself upright while he begs her to let him help—_how?_—or to hit him, or go and get Pod, and she can’t respond, she _cannot_, because if she falls apart in front of him now she will never put herself back together again.

When he finally goes, her knees give out. She braces herself against the table with a hand, sinks into the chair, trembling, sucks in deep breaths, wipes her eyes again and again. Then her door opens once more and there’s a flash of blind panic—but it’s Pod’s voice in her ears, soft and warm as a banked fire. Her vision is still a blur, but she hears him latch the door closed, and then footsteps drawing near.

“Ser?” he says, a little tentative.

“It’s nothing,” she chokes. “I’m fine.” A lie, and one he’ll see through, but she can’t help trying to deflect his kind concern; it’s a reflex. It doesn’t work. Instead, he comes closer—and then he reaches out and rests a hand on her shoulder, steady and warm. He doesn’t try to do any more than that, but it’s enough to make the tears come again, and she heaves her way through several ragged breaths before she can speak.

“I’m all right,” she tells him. “I’m just—“

“I know,” he says. “Ser Jaime said.” She nods, biting her lip, her face still turned away from him.

Pod sighs, and she feels him lean against the desk, not taking his hand off her shoulder. What is she trying to hide? He knows; he’d been among the first to know, in Winterfell, and she doesn’t know how long he must have suspected, before, but she wouldn’t wager on it. Pod’s been closer to her for longer than anyone but her father, and he can read her more than well enough to know what she’s kept locked in her chest. She hasn’t talked about this with anyone.

“He startled me,” she says, eventually, once she’s sure she can control her voice. “He’s sorry,” Pod says, slowly, and Brienne nods, her head aching, as if she’s the one who’d overindulged in a wineskin.

“I know,” she says, swallowing.

“The promise still stands,” Pod tells her, after a moment. She does look up at him then, confused, and he offers a sheepish half-smile. “To sort him out, if he troubles you,” he elaborates, and she coughs out something like a laugh, remembering his earnest willingness to go to war against Jaime on her behalf.

“I don’t want that,” she tells him.

“I didn’t think so,” he says. He already knows that, too.

“I…” She’s searching for words; there’s no point in maintaining these defenses, but that doesn’t mean she knows how to talk about this, and she wonders, momentarily, why not. But it’s Pod: he knows. “I’m glad he’s alive,” she says. “But it’s…not easy, sometimes, having him so near.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” he tells her, like it’s a perfectly ordinary and sensible way to feel. Like he understands.

“It’s foolish,” she says, softly, swallowing the words. Foolish to have thought otherwise.

“There’s no shame in it,” Pod tells her, very gentle, and she closes her eyes and lets herself try to accept that. It’s not what she’d done with Jaime in Winterfell that shames her. It’s everything she still feels now, her humiliating inability to let it go, to make peace with it, to accept that it could not have been otherwise. To admit that she’d wished, against all sense, for something more.

“Where is he?” she asks, exhausted at the thought of dealing with him again. But she can’t let him go falling drunk down some stairwell. What a waste that would be.

“Common room,” Pod says. “He didn’t want to leave. He was—upset.”

“He was drunk,” she corrects him, more sharply than she’d meant to, and that sets her to close to tears again, being harsh to Pod. But he shows no sign of being hurt; he’s always been so patient with her. Brienne doesn’t know what she’s done, to deserve such steady faith, but she’s grateful for it even if she doubts she’ll ever be able to show him how much.

“I’ll see him back to his chambers,” Pod says, after a beat, and she sighs; surrenders, she’ll let him clean up the mess, this time.

“Thank you,” she says, meaning for more than just that, and he gives her a sad little nod and goes.

She sleeps badly, tossing and turning, and dreads the possibility of encountering Jaime the next day, but he doesn’t appear anywhere she goes. She drills the men with as much energy as she can muster, and makes the time to attend to Josip and Alyn particularly, checking on their progress so she can send a report with the next raven to Winterfell. They seem more at ease these days: still formal with her, as they should be with their commander, but they’ve fallen into a comfortable rapport with the other squires, and a respectful camaraderie with the knights of the Kingsguard. It’s heartening, seeing them settle. It reminds her why she’s here, what she’s doing.

In the afternoon, there’s a meeting with the small council—Jaime’s presence isn’t required, mercifully. Brienne makes her report on the ongoing purge of the city watch; speaks with Ser Davos, passing on some information about a potential smuggling ring at the docks; endures Bronn’s grumbling about the impact the ongoing reconstruction of the city walls is having on his coffers. She tries not to let her weariness show. She feels Tyrion’s narrowed eyes observing her, when she rises to go, but he says nothing. He’s been unusually circumspect of late, and his silence is almost as uncomfortable as his previous overtures at closeness had been, for what they reveal about the way he thinks of her—in relation to Jaime.

After a hurried supper, it’s her turn to take a shift at the king’s side, and she brushes off Pod’s offer to go in her stead; one night of bad sleep is no excuse for shirking her duty, and Ser Rhodri will take her place after the midnight bell. It was her decision to change the rota to four shifts a day, so that the guard by the king’s side would always be fresh, ready to meet any threat fresh and strong. It’s not often that she’s here herself, though—her duties as Lord Commander have a wider scope, so it’s only one night and one day out of seven that she’s personally guarding the king, council meetings and the rare public excursion outside of the keep aside.

Bran makes no acknowledgment of her when she takes up her position at against the wall in the small, warm room where he spends most of his private hours. The king stares into the far distance, and Brienne keeps her eyes fixed on the doorway: it’s less unsettling than meeting his blank gaze. She tries not to let her mind drift in the silence, focuses her ears on the small sounds of the keep—servants’ footsteps in the hallway, a gull’s cry outside the window, the sound of maids heating water for the king’s bath in the adjacent chamber. When the girl comes to say his bath is ready, Brienne takes the handles of the wooden chair and wheels him into the other room.

She doesn’t help undress him—his body servant, a young man from Flea Bottom, takes care of that—but she does help lift him into the steaming tub, then steps back to let Yanek do the washing, keeping a respectful distance. Not that the king seems to care about modesty. She can’t help catching a glimpse of his withered legs, thinks—Jaime did that. But it has no sting, now. He and Bran have come to terms with it, it seems, either in Winterfell, or after. It’s not her place to carry the weight of Jaime’s sins and regrets.

She helps Yanek lift Bran from the bath when they’re done, and once the king is dressed in his nightclothes and robe, she wheels him back to his bedchamber, where he accepts a cup of tea from a maidservant and sips it, staring out the window that overlooks the harbour. Her mind churns with all the questions she can’t ask._ Did you know he was alive all that time? Were you watching him, far away in Lys? Why did you bring him back? Was this your plan? And where do I fall in that pattern, or did that not matter?_

“You could go,” Bran says, breaking the silence. Yanek and the maidservant have gone; the two of them are alone in the room.

“Your Grace?” she asks, puzzled.

“Back to Winterfell, or to Tarth, if that would please you better. You don’t have to stay here.”

“I swore an oath, your Grace.” To him, of course, after the coronation, but she’d sworn one to his mother, too, and it comforts her to think of it, when she doubts herself—that Lady Catelyn would be relieved, to know that Brienne watches over what’s left of her precious boy.

“I would not hold you to it,” Bran says, and for a moment he looks more like his mother’s son—it’s not concern, or any kind of emotion, on his face, but a steady sort of attention. “You may always make the request of me.”

“Thank you, your Grace,” she replies, automatically, and he lets it end there, turns his gaze back to the window. She’s not sure what prompted him to say any of it—he’d told Sansa that he couldn’t see into men’s hearts, and surely that means not women’s either. But he can see other things, and she suppresses an uncomfortable impulse to squirm at the thought of what else he might have witnessed, from a distance, in some inhuman guise. It’s bad enough thinking what everyone else is wondering, about her and Jaime—if that’s what he means. She doesn’t want to ask, so she stands still against the wall and actually thinks about it—about what the king has offered to do.

She wouldn’t have said she’s unhappy here. For all that she misses Sansa, and misses her father, too, she’s of more use in King’s Landing. She’s doing good work. She has Pod at her side, a constant reassurance. She has company, of a sort, even beyond the Kingsguard—Sam and Gilly, and Ser Davos, whose company she finds more congenial than all the rest of the Small Council combined. Even Helaena, who she thinks could in time become something like a friend. It’s not that she wants to go. It’s just what she’d told Pod: it’s not easy, sometimes, having Jaime near. But she’s also forced to admit—if only to herself—that it would be worse still to be elsewhere, now that he’s back in King’s Landing; that too large a part of her thoughts would linger here with him. She wouldn’t be able to keep wondering—what he’s doing, where he spends his days and his nights, what he looks like, if he’s changed. It’s so hard to untangle, to weigh out, what she has the right to begrudge Jaime against what she owes him—the sword, the chance for Sansa’s life and her oath, Pod, her knighthood, even the thorny, complicated gift of the pleasures he’d shared with her in Winterfell, which she still isn’t able to regret. There’s no escape from it, from him, not while he lives and her heart persists in caring. It’s not a comfort, that realization, but it’s a resolution of sorts, so she lets it be, and by the time Rhodri finally comes to relieve her, hours after the king has gone to bed, she feels a little more at peace.

She sleeps deeply all night, and doesn’t dream, of Jaime or anyone else. And the next morning, he’s waiting for her—deliberate, planted on his feet in the sawdust of the training yard, his head coming up to mark her when she comes through the opposite gate. She stifles the impulse to turn around or hurry past him, and lets her slow steps carry her to the point where her path will intersect with his waiting form. She can do him this courtesy, at least, to not ignore him.

Jaime is sober, in every sense of the word. He calls her “Lord Commander,” apologizes for his bad conduct, offers to find himself quarters outside the keep if his presence is a disturbance to her. She accepts the former and demurs the latter, and can’t quite meet his eyes—until he apologizes for amending the White Book, too, says he was moved by her kindness, stumbling over the words a little. It startles her. Of course she doesn’t mind—it ought to have been her task, to do it, upon news of his return, but she’d been unable to make herself return to those pages she’d filled more than a year ago at the height of her grief.

He’s trying so hard, and she can’t harden her heart to him now. She remembers what he’d said, the other night, that he thought they’d be better off thinking he was gone, and before she can think about it she’s telling him, “I’m glad you survived, Ser Jaime, that you made it back here.” And she means it; she is glad. It’s not easy, having him here, but it’s so much better than the alternative, than the finality of his bones scattered in the rubble and dust.

They part on—_good terms_, he’d said, and it feels like a fragile peace, but a peace nonetheless. It eases the ache in her chest a little. That awful night in Winterfell, it was only the end of something—a brief madness, a bubble—but not the end of everything, not the end of his life, not even the end of…of this, whatever it is. Time in his company. The ability to look at his face.

He goes back to his work, and she to her own, too busy before long to dwell on it overmuch. She has her hands full with the delegation from Dorne—tedious negotiations, knitting the wary Martells back into the fabric of the kingdoms, that last for nearly a fortnight—and the remainder of the reorganization of the city watch. That’s good work she’s done; she hopes they can make it hold. She cycles through several more shifts at the king’s side, and he doesn’t mention the subject of her departure again.

Jaime is unfailingly polite, when they see one another—in the council chambers or the training yard or in passing. But he’s never familiar, as he had so carelessly been that night. The closest he comes is the afternoon she catches him lingering to watch as Josip and Alyn spar with Pod and another of the guard under her observation.

“Your Northern recruits are showing some improvement.” His voice interrupts her thoughts, and she has to quell the startle from her shoulders before she turns to look at him, standing at a careful distance, his gaze carefully directed at the blunted practice swords scraping and clashing a few yards away. Brienne feels her mouth turn up slightly, despite herself. He’s right.

“Pod’s taken them in hand very effectively,” she tells him. “I think he’s enjoying being the teacher, for once, and not the pupil.” He’s better at it than she was, too, at least in those early days. He has a gift for balancing firmness and kindness, and the boys look up to him with an awkward sort of adoration.

“You’ve done well with him,” he says, quietly, and there’s a kind of sincere respect in his voice that goes to the marrow of her—reminds her of another afternoon, another training yard.

“Thank you, Ser Jaime,” she says, and he gives her a nod that feels more like a bow, his eyes meeting hers for just a moment, and then takes his leave.

Pod comes back to the common room that evening with a whiff of ale and perfume on him—he’s made a visit to Helaena’s; she’d asked him to inquire about the smuggling Davos had mentioned, so there should be a dispatch waiting for her in the locked drawer of her desk tonight. The men rib him about what he’s been doing there, and he jokes back, genial, dropping a few bawdy observations, although Brienne is fairly sure there’s nothing behind them. He seems to spend rather a lot of time these days lingering in the wing of the keep that holds Jaime’s offices, and she’s seen him speaking with Jaime’s dark-haired assistant in the courtyard more than once. The men tease him about that, too, and he blushes the way he doesn’t after he’s been down in the city. She wonders if she should ask Pod about it, give him a friendly ear—he’d done as much for her, after all. But he hasn’t asked, and it’s not as if she has wisdom to offer in these matters. So she holds her tongue.

And then she’s back in the training yard, one sunny day soon after, and Pod bursts through the gateway, looking more white-faced than she’s seen him since the day she’d drawn Oathkeeper and told him to kneel. He makes straight for her, steady as an arrow, and her heart is in her throat already at the look on his face, before his words even hit her: “There’s been an accident, Ser, in the water channel.”


End file.
